Threats won’t close pot club: owner
SASKATOON — Despite threats of jail and huge fines, the head of the Saskatchewan Compassion Club won’t shut his doors.
Mark Hauk of Saskatoon’s first medical marijuana dispensary is one of 13 pot club owners across Canada who have received an emailed notice from Health Canada warning of possible RCMP raids.
The letters state that the owners may face legal action if they don’t stop selling or advertising marijuana. The letter Hauk received threatened two years in prison and fines of up to $5 million.
When asked if he was worried about police shutting down his operation, Hauk said it has been an ongoing concern ever since he began selling dried cannabis and other marijuana products.
“I don’t take being arrested or going to jail lightly,” said Hauk. “The reality is we were well aware before the letter was issued that we were operating outside the federal regulations.”
Saskatoon police are continuing their wait and see approach when it comes to dealing with Hauk’s dispensary.
The board of police commissioners discussed the issue Monday, but Chief Clive Weighill said he is still waiting for direction from the federal government on whether to charge anyone in relation to the storefront pot dispensary.
“We are working with Health Canada and the federal prosecutions on this,” Weighill told reporters after Monday’s meeting.
“We don’t want to go in and charge somebody, then end up getting some bad case law out of this.”
The store has been met with some opposition, much of it coming from licensed providers who say that without a proper licence the store is operating illegally.
Prairie Plant Systems is the only licensed provider of medical marijuana under the federal system.
The company’s president Brent Zettl said he has a problem with dispensaries like the one in Saskatoon.
“If we were having a discussion on whether or not to open up a dispensary for fentanyl or unknown sources of OxyContin, we wouldn’t having this debate,” Zettl told members of the city’s board of police commissioners.
Dispensary owner Jerry Martin, who operates Martin Medical Services in Whitewood, also received a letter from Health Canada.
He believes the notice is political in nature, and says it won’t affect his decision to keep his doors open.
“It was shocking but we aren’t stopping,” said Martin. “We are helping to change people’s minds on the matter. I’m going to put myself at risk for their risk.”
Health Canada has not identified the other dispensaries that received the warning but Hauk said he has heard of other organizations receiving the email, including several in B.C., and is unsure why his club was targeted.
“They are coming after clubs like ours over what they claim to be advertising, which we don’t participate in,” said Hauk.